Do planet zoo game developer really know what we want in planet Zoo game ???

[random goat]

I agree with the 1% one. Not many people bother to comment/review the game. I disagree with that a few being representative. (even when the DLC is released it's a close call with positive/negative feedback).
You got the fans focused on the zoo on this forum, which is completely different than the steam forum. More content is not a highly requested demand on that forum. A year ago on instagram/twitter, the request for console versions was more popular than on this forum.
The only thing that would be representative for Frontier would be the sales numbers, I guess?
In the first 15 months they sold +1,5 million copies of the base game - it's a lot but I think PC will remain the popular title in the long run. Theme Park/Rollercoaster games have always been more popular in the gaming community.

More content is not highly requested? Maybe not more content in general but surely more animals. I inisist: I encourage people not to refuse checking factual data. If you check steam reviews, more variety of animals is by far the most extended complaint/demand.

People always complain about the price or unhappy with the content on steam, it's a bit too personal to give an objective opinion about it.
People who buy games on regular basis, barely pay attention to those kind of bad reviews. (with a few minutes of reseach you'll know if it's worth the price for yourself)
If it's overwhelmingly negative, that's going to scare of a lot of people. When it's slightly positive or negative, not a big deal

DLC reviews actually got better - the Australian and Aquatic ones got better reviews than the previous ones.

• Or the DLC got better
• Or people who complain don't bother complaining about the game anymore
• Or the negative reviewers have moved on to other games. (the first packs had double the amount of reviews)
• Or the people who bought the game in recent months are more positive about the products.

I agree that steam reviews is not the only indicator. But of course reviews are personal opinions. How come they not be? You cannot deduce an objective opinion based on that. Opinions are always subjective. But you can extract numbers, data based on those opinions. Data are facts. And facts say that thefull-game has very postitive reviews and the DLCs (in general) don't. Has it gotten better as time went by? Absolutely. Data is there, and the reasons you exposed are pretty valid to me, they make sense. From what can be seen based on steam reviews, the Aquatic DLC was just better than the previous ones because of diving and "It has penguins, insta-buy".
The Arctic, the South America and the Australia (though a bit better) have undenieably worse reviews rate compared with the full game. And again, the main complaint: 4 animals don't represent Arcthc/South America/Australia.

 

[Dezessete]

One note, though. The more consistent players are usually the most active in the forum, dedicated discord servers, youtube, reddit, etc. Players who bought the game but hardly ever play it (the vast majority) are not active in these platforms for a basic reason: they don't care that much.

You are absolutely correct here, but you have to be careful in what direction you read it. Yes, people who are participating in forums are more likely to be active players. On the other hand, just because someone does not participate in such places, must'nt necessarily be non active in playing the game.

Just to emphasize my original point here is a little example from outside PZ (i hope it's not considered to offtopic).
The developers of Darkest Dungeon made a system called "corpse mechanic" for there game. This lead to a huge outcry in the community with a lot of criticism. So the developers patched in an option to remove the system. Turns out only 1% off the active playerbase actually used said option.
This is also part of the editional data developers have accses to, which ties in to your next question:

But I would be glad to know what data could they be using in order to know what PZ players want, if it's not the forum opinions, steam reviews and discord servers from content creators.

Also, it is contradictory to what Mutso posted regarding steam reviews:

It's actually not as contradicitve as it may seem.

 

[random goat]

I'm not quite sure if I understood you here correctly, so please let me know if my interpretation is wrong and correct me if needed, but it sounds like companies need to rely on the vocal minority to guess what the not so vocal palyers think? If thats trua than this is exactly the fallacy I was talking about. There is way more data that a game provides beside the posts on a forum of said game.

Again, I humbly enquire what data other than steam reviews, opinions on public platforms and all the info provided by steamcharts (eg. average playtime per player, average active players everyday, etc.) can be used to know what your customers/players want.

Correlation != causation.
The reason for shrinking player bases can lie in a myriad of things.
Thats the problem I have with such threads (and this one in particular) that people see a problem for themselve and rush to find a solution without actually analyzing said proplem first. People are like: "x is bad, so you have to do y to make it not bad." But maybe it's not just x thats bad but also a, b and c who all play into x. (this is also not exclisive to this forum, this is a generell observation. people are just driven to find solutions). But the question to why a propblem is a problem is way more complex than this. It's not about finding A problem, it's about finding THE problem.
So maybe, all this solutions that got provided are actually already acknowledged by Frontier, and the reason they aren't implimented (yet) is that those solutions aren't the right ones, according to the data that Frontier has, or need to be more evaluated first.
There is just more to the topic than the often repeated narrative of "Company x doesn't ad solution y. So that must mean company x doesn't care!"
We have to get away from this shallow thinking.

I honestly think you're reading too much into it But it's fine, I actually appreciate when a different way to look at things is provided.
I insist, though. Factual data says the the full-game was a success in the videogame industry and in terms of players opinions. DLCs on the other hand? Not so much. Is information regarding DLCs somewhat biased because there are fare less people who bought them? Sure, but it's those people who will keep buying further DLCs, not the other way around.

PS: Sorry for triple-posting.

 

[Dezessete]

I honestly think you're reading too much into it

To be fair, I have the impression people should read more into it.
Because a lot of those threads seem quite stale and shallow. They never seem to bring anything new to the table.
Now again, this is not a complaint about criticism, as criticism is extremely important. You raised a very good point a few pages ago, explaining how, without criticism, things woudn't change. So I'm not criticising the criticism, but the actual quality of that criticism.

There is a really great video that tries to explain why not all criticism will be answered and why it sometimes may seem that the developers don't care about the criticism (even though this is not true) and I highly recommend this video:

There are also two interesting quotes that appear in the comment section which bring some food for thoughts:
" Players are very good at knowing how they feel about things; they're very bad at knowing why they feel it. "
and
"Players are very good at finding problems, but are not very good at making solutions." - apperantly from a GDC talk.

 

[random goat]

To be fair, I have the impression people should read more into it.
Because a lot of those threads seem quite stale and shallow. They never seem to bring anything new to the table.
Now again, this is not a complaint about criticism, as criticism is extremely important. You raised a very good point a few pages ago, explaining how, without criticism, things woudn't change. So I'm not criticising the criticism, but the actual quality of that criticism.

And I really appreciate your insight on the topic and that you go into details. But my point is that there really is no need to overcomplicate things. Data speaks for itself. And data (speaking of steam reviews) says that DLCs were not as highly regarded as the full-game. And that the most common complaint is 4 animals is not enough.
Regarding quality of criticism, I also don't share the spirit of the OP because Frontier clearly takes feedback into account (its for their best interest). But some quite valid critiques have been brought up here, like the fact that we don't know to what extent our feedback is really acknowledged (lacking communication).
Other than the OP (whose opinion I respect, nonetheless), some other valid points have been provided in this and other threads with reasons as to why certain things could need improvement in the game.

There is a really great video that tries to explain why not all criticism will be answered and why it sometimes may seem that the developers don't care about the criticism (even though this is not true) and I highly recommend this video:

There are also two interesting quotes that appear in the comment section which bring some food for thoughts:
" Players are very good at knowing how they feel about things; they're very bad at knowing why they feel it. "
and
"Players are very good at finding problems, but are not very good at making solutions." - apperantly from a GDC talk.

For some reason, youtube videos don't show for me in this forum D: But thanks for sharing it!
I know those comments are not yours but since you posted them:

" Players are very good at knowing how they feel about things; they're very bad at knowing why they feel it. "-
Why some players do not feel 100% satisfied: from what I've read for several months, it's mostly because it's almost impossible to recreate a real zoo or even a some common areas you'd find in zoos because some generic zoo props and many animal species are missing.

"Players are very good at finding problems, but are not very good at making solutions."
There have been several suggestions as to how to approach the most common demands. In many cases it's just "we need more animals", but there have been at least 3-4 very valid suggestions. Markun's monthly animals, seasonal pass, increasing the animal/building pieces ratio in DLCs, small clone animals packs, nutrit's recent animal list, etc. Of course Frontier should know better about the feasibility of these than any of us.

And I also understand devs from any game cannot and should not please everyone's demands.

 

[Dezessete]

I don't have that much time right now to go into the details of your entire post, but that one seems important to me:

And data (speaking of steam reviews) says that DLCs were not as highly regarded as the full-game.

But does it tell you WHY there not as highly regarded?

 

[random goat]

I don't have that much time right now to go into the details of your entire post, but that one seems important to me:


But does it tell you WHY there not as highly regarded?

No worries haha.

Answer to your question: Yes, of course. People normally state what is good/wrong about the product in those reviews. I am not gonna do the numbers or any statistics about all the reviews, obviously. But if you take a glance at them you can see the pattern I am talking about. Many negative (and some positive) reviews claim that it'd be good to have more animals.

 

[paul78]

I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about anything from too much micro management (which frontier has addressed at least in sandbox mode) to gameplay was not as easy as zt2. I’m sure more animals is also on there but I haven’t read them lately. To me the game is pretty solid. As far as gameplay goes I can’t really think of any setbacks. The learning curve was a bit steeper then games of this niche I’ve played in the past but it only takes time to master it. Even the path work doesn’t seem to bother me but that’s also a big one for many. I play sandbox tho so I’m sure the regular franchise player would have some issues to contribute that I wouldn’t be aware of. That’s not to say I haven’t successfully played franchise in the past tho when motivated by a challenge. For me even if they don’t add a ton more animals as long as they add a well balanced roster is most important. The game is easily on its way to being the best game of its type ever. Maybe the eventual tweaking of individual behaviors would also accomplish what people are after also. I have heard many wanting more challenging management also which is great to have that option but it’s honestly not a big one on my list due to my playing style.

 

[NL_Mutso]

More content is not highly requested?

Like I said, on the steam forum - actually not a big subject of discussion.

Different example to show some difference: Australian request DLC. Back then, we had 5 or 6 Australian DLC requests on 1 page and steam 1 request per 5-6 pages.
Heavily requested on this forum, not much of a big deal on the Steam forum. Even after the release of that DLC, complaints about the species - while on steam mostly people only cared about the addition of the koala/kangaroo and they were fine with it. A big difference for in-game priorities.

In short: this forum more focused on the zoo experience, steam foum is more focused on the gameplay. (fair assumption from my part ?)

On social media (Twitter/insta) I think the amount of requests for more animals and console version are almost the same. I've barely seen a thread about the console version on this forum. Every platform has it's priorities, I guess.

I agree that steam reviews is not the only indicator. But of course reviews are personal opinions. How come they not be? You cannot deduce an objective opinion based on that

Should've been a bit more clear on that one (removed a part). Quite a lot of people have a very personal issue with paid DLC. So basically every comment towards DLC is always biased against the price. They believe it should be free or a unreasonable cheap. (they think $2-$5 is a good price for this DLC).
Same goes with amount of animals. Some believe the 4-monthly DLC should have more animals so they will negatively review every DLC which doesn't have more than 4 habitat animals. Don't think it's fair to give a negative feedback on the actual content of a DLC for 9,99, just because you disagree with their DLC strategy.
But it's easier to comment that way because you don't have to create an account on a forum for it, which is too much effort for a lot of people. Or don't want Frontier to have their info.

People will always complain about the price. We've seen a lot of people asking for free features on this forum, just a question: What do you think people will review on steam if aviaries will be an only-paid DLC for PZ (Nothing in the free update). I'm guessing a lot of people will leave a negative review because they believe it should be (partly) free.
They can't blame it on broken promises, because aviaries were never mentioned as feature.

I've seen some of the reviews: $ 10,- for 4 animals - overpriced. Not mentioning the other content. Not that useful imo. Do they think it hasn't enough animals, don't like the mix of building pieces or do they think it's too expensive?
I appreciate the people who actually break down a DLC on every aspect, which surprisingly doesn't happen much for PZ and PC DLC.

Bad reviews with 0 to 2 hours is something I usually skip - they just bought the wrong game. Just refund the game and look for something that works for you. It happens and move on.
You mentioned people bought the Aquatic because it has penguins. I think I saw a bad review on the Arctic pack for not having penguins. Both reviews don't have any value for me
People also give bad reviews because Steam didn't refund the game or an error during purchase (didn't see that one for PZ). Don't think the thumbs up/down is a good system for rating stuff.

From what can be seen based on steam reviews, the Aquatic DLC was just better than the previous ones because of diving and "It has penguins, insta-buy".

Oh I agree, it approached a theme which has a lot more of appeal to it. I know some people didn't buy the Australian DLC because it didn't introduce something "new", like the Aquatic did. Not a big surprise actually .

 

[SanRazo618]

I was a player that wanted more animals and didn’t voice my opinion until I joined the forums.. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot like me. I guess for us it’s pretty hard since we come from zt2 where there’s a boat load of player created content and variety galore and it’s definitely unfair to place that on Frontier. However, even before I dabbled with mods the game felt complete you know? I felt like the devs added a awesome amount every expansion. These bite size packs just leave me deflated. Especially in an internet age where everything is fast paced. It’s no wonder the huge drop off happened. I’m starting to think PZ will never live up to its potential, and that’s not the mindset you want your consumers to have... just spend a little time anywhere where conversation about the game is happening and you get the same thing: WE WANT MORE ANIMALS! I don’t thinks it’s a minority thing. Also little animal drops will do SO MUCH for the relevancy of the game it’s not even funny.

 

[random goat]

I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about anything from too much micro management (which frontier has addressed at least in sandbox mode) to gameplay was not as easy as zt2. I’m sure more animals is also on there but I haven’t read them lately. To me the game is pretty solid. As far as gameplay goes I can’t really think of any setbacks. The learning curve was a bit steeper then games of this niche I’ve played in the past but it only takes time to master it. Even the path work doesn’t seem to bother me but that’s also a big one for many. I play sandbox tho so I’m sure the regular franchise player would have some issues to contribute that I wouldn’t be aware of. That’s not to say I haven’t successfully played franchise in the past tho when motivated by a challenge. For me even if they don’t add a ton more animals as long as they add a well balanced roster is most important. The game is easily on its way to being the best game of its type ever. Maybe the eventual tweaking of individual behaviors would also accomplish what people are after also. I have heard many wanting more challenging management also which is great to have that option but it’s honestly not a big one on my list due to my playing style.

We must be talking about different things. Otherwise I don't understand. I never talked about the reviews of the game but the DLCs, if that's what's creating confussion. I encourage you to re-check the DLCs steam reviews (I you have really checked them). I really don't want to make the stats, the evidence is there. Complaints about management are despicable. More animals is by far the most common demand.

Like I said, on the steam forum - actually not a big subject of discussion.
[...]

My bad, I overlooked the forum part. I haven't checked that platform lately.

Other than that, I can't believe what I'm about to write but I agree for the most part.
With this I disagree:

Don't think it's fair to give a negative feedback on the actual content of a DLC for 9,99, just because you disagree with their DLC strategy.

The DLC strategy inherently conditions the content of the DLC. If you're not happy with the content because the DLC strategy goes for 4 habitat animals, you have valid reasons to give a negative review. I wouldn't do that, but I can see why some people would.

Reviews can be a bit deceiving to some degree, I am not gonna deny that; and they should not be the only indicator of whether a game or DLC is well-regarded by the playerbase. But the main point still remains. Whether people think 9.99 is too much for just 5 animals or they want more animals at a higher price, the essence is the same: the current model doesn't provide us (or some of us) with as many animals as we would like to have in-game.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Yeah, was somewhat guessing that so I underlined the forum part. (my comments are way too long)

A bit clarification: Reviews can be good. Have to admit that DLC usually have poorly written reviews compared to the base game.
I would still recommend doing your own research. Especially with YT, it only takes a few minutes.

A really nice example on Steam is ZT2013 for PC. One review appealed to me, it's a positive review which recommends the game for zoo/animal lovers who like to watch/interact with animals but doesn't recommend the game for people who are ZT/ZT2 fans and expect to build/control your zoo like that.
I like reviews like that, because it's a good effort to be objective as much as possible for that game.
But a lot of reviewers give a bad review because it's not like ZT/ZT2, which I think it's not fair.

Btw, if anyone wants to buy the game cheap - it's 60% off. If you want to try it, now it's your chance
(Really don't like the game but the kids in my family love it and for them it has a lot of appeal)

I think there are at least 2 types of players in PZ:

• People who don't buy games on a regular base, they bought PZ and are willing to spend $ on every DLC. 9,99 or 19,99 or 29,99 doesn't matter - as long as it has enough content for it's price.
• People who buy games on a regular base, they bought PZ but are also playing/buying other games, they aren't willing to spend $ on all DLC - except when it isn't too expensive.

$ 9,99 is a good price for DLC. (For PZ it would be roughly: 1,99 per animal and 1,99 for the building pieces/exhibit animal/scenarios)
When it comes to 19,99 - you can buy a full game for that price. People will be more critical of their purchase and with $ 9,99 people don't overthink too much.

I don't think you'll ever find the right balance without "upsetting" anyone. At least with $ 9,99 everybody will buy DLC.

 

[paul78]

Ok I see sorry misunderstanding on my part. The dlc number has always since the first pack release been controversial. But at the same time if they haven’t changed it by now I really doubt they’ll ever change it tbh. I mean your talking about a yr plus of complaining and a year plus of no change. Not to mention the packs are still selling for the most part. Even the people complaining the most are still buying them for the most part.This tells me frontier has a set roadmap which for the time being consists of four plus the exhibit animal. This is probably the way it was presented to the higher ups and probably set in stone. They will eventually do all animal packs on occasion im pretty sure of that but I just got a feeling since it’s been this way this long no changes are coming anytime soon. @NL_Mutso thank god it’s not a carbon copy of zt. This game is everything zt wasn’t. I agree talking regular reviews in general very unfair comparison.

 

[Dezessete]

So I'm not the only one with the youtube problem? Good to know, here is the link for anyone interested:
Should Game Designers Listen to Negative Feedback?

And I really appreciate your insight on the topic and that you go into details

I'm humbled, but to be honest, I don't have any insight. I'm just as clueless about the topic as most forum members are. I just try to be aware of the fact that I basically know nothing.

Answer to your question: Yes, of course. People normally state what is good/wrong about the product in those reviews. I am not gonna do the numbers or any statistics about all the reviews, obviously. But if you take a glance at them you can see the pattern I am talking about. Many negative (and some positive) reviews claim that it'd be good to have more animals.

As I said before those reviews are always to be taken with a grain of salt. I mentioned the problem that the Darkest Dungeon teamencountered before and this can easily be something similiar. It can possibly be that the problem isn't actual a problem at all, or that it adresses the problem the wrong way (this also happened on other games, where developers tried to "fix" a problem which angered players who never had thought about that problem in a negative way).
Now if people say the want more animals, the question is, what fundamental problem do they try to solve here? Do they just want more differntly coloured polygons for the sake of visual variety? Do they hope to break out of a repitive gameplay loop do to new challenges? Both points need to be fixed differently and so it's up to Frontier do deduce what "we need more animals!" actually means.

Same goes with your other answer. Why do people need the possibility to recreate actual zoos to have fun with this game? What part of the gameplay does this adress and how?

Then it get's even more complicated when you think about the details. Let's just say people want more animals for the sake of having more animals. Which animals do you give them? The ones requested on the forums? On Steam? All of them?

There have been several suggestions as to how to approach the most common demands.

But no one knows actually how feasible they are. We are just standing on the sideline here, so what seems good and obvious for us doesn't need to be the best solution for Frontier. You already said it: Frontier reads the forums and knows whats going on. So they see those suggestions. If they think their feasible, they will act upon it, if not, they will have their reasons.

But maybe you're actually right. Maybe it's to much to ask for people to think off all those thinks. In the end, this is not our job to provide Frontier well thought out buisiness plans.
I just wish for people be aware of the complexity that comes with developing and upgrading a game. I feel many people should show more humility in that regard, because all the questions I asked in this thread (not just in this answer) are questions that people working for a gaming company have to ask themselve.
So comments like: "Frontier doesn't listen" or "They don't implement x so they are bad" are just unfair. And even people who claim to only give constructive criticism do sound quite judgmental in many of their comments.
I just wish for people to acknowledge that we do not know everything and that Frontier most liekly has reasons on why they act like they do.

 

[DarthQuell]

I think the main problem isn't really just the amount of content. I've played both ZT games, finished both of them. I've played zoo games my whole life (some really lame ones for mobile. Ugh).

The problem is that all these "nostalgic" players are comparing 2 different games, expecting the newer one to be exactly like the original. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Both are good, yes, but not the same.
That's what happened with ZT2 and ZT2013. But they're not the same. They were nwver intended to be the same. One is zoo management, the other is a keeper sim

Like, for example, people say JPOG is better than JWE because of mod support. But, has anybody successfully done what JWE did? Yeah, new animals, but they generally behave the same. Not really anything truly new.

Anyways, I don't know if any if this is relevant, but, well, there y'all go

 

[paul78]

Just wanted to add I too came from the zt2 community. It had tons of user created mods(animals) and objects and some nicely done building sets. Aurora Designs and Sophie are the two that most commonly come to mind when revolutionizing zt2. Now obviously many more also not named but AD with their at the time animal quality and Sophie with her objects and building sets kicked it all off. Of course Iben who currently plays planet zoo and a few others also had a hand in it as well. When planet zoo came out I was just stoked to play. In sandbox this game is simply unbeatable. Now first speculations on dlc was I knew it wouldn’t be like zt2 obviously with the user content but I’ll admit I thought it would be a little more then 4 plus 1 exhibit but not much more tbh. Basing these opinions on frontiers other games. Now with zt2 for me at the end of the day all the user created content in the world wasn’t going to save the game for me. New animations although very doable by the most talented members were very few and far between and to me every new animal was just a carbon copy of another or animal before it. The limitations of the game are what bored me of zt2. Now with planet zoo it has all the potential zt2 always lacked to me. Now the animal debate imo more does not always necessarily mean better (zt2 being proof imo) to me it’s the type of animals and what they bring to the table. Zoo games at least for now will never compare to real life obviously and staying realistic in expectations since frontier is a business and will eventually move on from PZ is why the type of animals and quality are so important. For me aviary is fully expected but realistically I’m not counting on 50-100 bird species but at least that niche will be completed. My local zoo has parakeets, bald and gold eagles, owls ,and a few tropical species but in guessing only ten types tbh. So with realistic expectations in mind they can still hit a home run without producing 200 plus animals.

 

[SanRazo618]

Variety is really important in a Zoo game though. Everyone’s zoos have the same species and there’s not much room to get out that box. I’ve learned that after making multiple zoos now. Trying to create new unique facilities with different niches is hard sometimes when yours is the same as everyone else’s. Variety is super important even if it’s just new sub species for animals already in the game. Just makes our zoos more unique. Aviaries and aquariums are NEEDED as well (not just a fun bonus) if the goal was to create realistic zoos in planet zoo

 

[SalamAnders]

It would be interesting so see what happened, if Frontier tested the monthly animal idea. I see why it might be a bit of a risky step for them, to go out and announce one animal per month from now on. Instead they could just try it out once, see how well it sells. Maybe even with a not super popular choice of animal, to put it on the edge. Let it be out there for a while, look at the numbers and the reactions. Then they have a better base for whatever this would be profitable solution for them.

 

[TFG21]

But you can extract numbers, data based on those opinions. Data are facts. And facts say that thefull-game has very postitive reviews and the DLCs (in general) don't.

I wanted to address this, particularly the "data are facts" statement. This is only partially true. Not all data is created equal, but is highly affected by sample design. You always need to consider which biases you may be introducing during the collection process. In this case, as as been pointed out, reviews are often a biased source of information. Negative critics, as well as critics at the extremes, tend to be more vocal than neutral and positive critics. This actually leads to an under-representation of neutral/positive reviews and skews the overall review negative. There also is a qualitative aspect to reviews, in that not every review is created equal. Beyond looking at the review score, you must also consider why the reviewer left that score, and whether or not it constitutes a valid review (some examples already provided are things like $10 for 4 animals is too much, completely ignoring the other content in the pack; this isn't a great review).

In short, data are facts is an inaccurate statement. If your data is biased, and you don't account for this bias, these are bad data leading to false conclusions

 

[random goat]

I wanted to address this, particularly the "data are facts" statement. This is only partially true. Not all data is created equal, but is highly affected by sample design. You always need to consider which biases you may be introducing during the collection process. In this case, as as been pointed out, reviews are often a biased source of information. Negative critics, as well as critics at the extremes, tend to be more vocal than neutral and positive critics. This actually leads to an under-representation of neutral/positive reviews and skews the overall review negative. There also is a qualitative aspect to reviews, in that not every review is created equal. Beyond looking at the review score, you must also consider why the reviewer left that score, and whether or not it constitutes a valid review (some examples already provided are things like $10 for 4 animals is too much, completely ignoring the other content in the pack; this isn't a great review).

In short, data are facts is an inaccurate statement. If your data is biased, and you don't account for this bias, these are bad data leading to false conclusions

I assume you read at least the phrase you quoted. In that very phrase, two things are compared: a) the full game, b) the DLCs. Assuming that indeed data is biased, it should be biased in both elements of the comparison. Ergo, DLCs overall ratings are still significantly lower than the full-game's.
Now, if we get technical, I am happy to get technical too.

In this case, as as been pointed out, reviews are often a biased source of information. Negative critics, as well as critics at the extremes, tend to be more vocal than neutral and positive critics. This actually leads to an under-representation of neutral/positive reviews and skews the overall review negative.

It's ironic that you question "biased" data using an opinion. Is there any fact that proves that indeed steam reviews are biased towards negativism? If so, and following your reasoning that there is a negativism bias, how come it only apply to the DLCs reviews? What happens with the full-game? How are they overwhelmingly positive?
Why negative critics are extreme and positive are not extreme? Of course, it's fair to assume that the "neutral" part of the playerbase is not vocal in steam reviews, servers, here or anywhere. There is a specific number of reviews, posts, suggestions, etc. and its the devs job to determine if that number is significant compared to the total playerbase. But it is the only meaningul data that is avaliable (as far as I am aware).

About the qualitative aspect of the reviews: I agree. Reviews like "too expensive" are as invalid as "BUY, THERE ARE PENGUINS".
Regarding your specific example: "$10 for 4 animals is too much". I don't see how a person writing that review is ignoring other content in the pack. They are most likely fine with the rest of the content, but very disapointed with the amount of animals. Not ignoring anything. (This is just an assumption, so is yours).

Final statement: Anyway, it seems the steam reviews are biased, forum posts are biased, dedicated discord servers and platforms such as twitter, reddit, etc. are all biased. Okay, assuming everything is biased (and I'm not saying they are not biased to some extent), my question still remains: Objectively, what data is used to know what the PZ players want, then? The only answer I've seen so far is that the devs are able to know what DLCs are the more succesful, what in-game animals and/or building pieces are used the most and whatnot, which is all pretty pointless if you want to answer that question.
Again, I will be happy to know what data can you use to get an idea of what your players want other than "biased" platforms.